Happy Holidays!
by Tafkae
Summary: CHAPTER 3 UP Yes, CDRW, I'm still alive! Yami plays pinball, Kaiba gets a pizza pan to the head, and Mai breaks the law! Also featuring the debut appearance of Chad the Jewish Pizza Guy!
1. Happy Halloween!

Hi, folks! This is what you get if you give me sugar in the summertime and I have nothing better to do... scary thought, isn't it?  
  
**Disclaimer:** Unless my name is Kazuki Takahashi and nobody told me, which I doubt, I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, and the only episode I have taped is pretty stupid. Thank God that WB got the new ones out, or else I'd be going insane... oh wait, I already have. Scratch that!  
  
Happy Holidays  
by TAFKAE  
  
Chapter 1: Happy Halloween!  
  
Jounouchi was standing two rungs down from the top of the ladder, and he still couldn't reach the roof. (Stupid safety rules - "always stay at least three rungs from the top," if that was true, he was pushing it already.) He and Honda had been decorating the latter's house, but he wondered if the place absolutely _had_ to be this high-roofed. Honda had the cushy job of carving pumpkins.  
Jou figured he could get away with one more rung.  
"Hi, Jou!"  
"GWAAAH!" As he jumped, the ladder toppled to the side, dragging its rule-breaking passenger along with it, and landing directly on top of him as well. "Ow… get the antiseptic…"  
Honda ran out the front door. "Holy crap! Is it okay?"  
"Yeah, I'm fine…" Jou moaned. "Merely a flesh wound…"  
"Not you, the ladder," Honda scolded, setting it back up. "Honestly, Jou, you're such a -" Then he noticed the cause of the disruption. "Oh, hey there Yugi. When did you get here?"  
"Right before Jou fell off the ladder," Yugi said cheerfully, oblivious to the fact that it was his fault. "How're your costumes coming?"  
"Perfect," Honda replied. Anzu had suggested that he and Jou go as Beavis and Butthead, and though Honda had thought (and still did) that it was a good idea, Jou had expressed violent opposition. Emphasis on violent. Honda had decided to go as James Bond instead.  
"I _would_ be finishing it up if Double-Oh-Seven here hadn't drafted me to deck out his house because he can't reach the roof," Jou spat, standing indignantly. "Though honestly I haven't been able to find enough gel to hold my hair up like I need."  
"You can borrow some of mine," Yugi said almost instinctively. He had quite a bit at home - after all, he needed it to keep his hair the way he did.  
"Borrowing implies returning," Honda pointed out.  
"Have, then. But I don't think I can help you with the roof thing."  
"No biggie. I think Anzu's got an extension ladder someplace," Jou said with a grin. "Have you decided what you're going as?"  
Yugi was grinning just as much. "Yeah, but I'm keeping it a secret 'til tomorrow. It's really good, though!"  
"Well, why'd ya come all the way out here?" Honda asked. His house was in a neighborhood fondly dubbed "the boondocks." "Can't be just to check on us… Ooh! We could have gone as the Three Stooges!"  
Yugi laughed. "Naw, I just need some Wite-Out. I think Grandpa used the last of ours on the electric bill this month." For a moment Jou wondered if this had anything to do with the fact Yugi hadn't picked up the phone for a week, but he decided not to ask.  
Honda reached into his coat pocket and rummaged around for a second before producing a small white plastic bottle, which he promptly tossed to Yugi. It bounced off his head and into the grass. "Oops."  
Yugi picked it up. "Thanks. I'll bring over that gel later on, alright Jou?"  
"Gotcha." Jou flashed his friend a thumbs-up. "Oh, and don't forget, Anzu's place tomorrow at eight!"  
"Wouldn't miss it!" Yugi called, and with that, he was gone.  
  
_The next day at 8:14 PM…_  
Jou sighed. The trick-or-treaters were already out, and if Yugi didn't show up soon, they were gonna miss out on all the good candy!  
Honda flipped through channel after channel of horror movies, finally settling on "The Twilight Zone" which seemed to be the closest thing to tolerable. _Cable is overrated,_ he thought to himself. He was in a black suit and bowtie (probably borrowed from his dad) and had his hair slicked back. Very Bondy. And Bond was synonymous with "chick magnet."  
Anzu flipped through her magazine for the fifth time. _Where the heck is he?_ she wondered irritably. At a glance, it was hard to tell it was her, though despite the blue hair paint, she still looked rather Anzu-esque. Though after all this waiting, she was dang close to having the Bulma attitude to match her costume.  
Jou's hair, thanks to a generous donation of gel from Yugi, flew out in every conceivable direction except forward, and so did his giant red coat. It didn't look as though it would be at all unfeasible to hide illegal aliens under it. The cardboard gun looked fake, but completed the Vash entourage nicely.  
The doorbell rang for the fifth time that night, and Jou got up to answer it, cursing as he almost tripped over the coat. (How the heck did Vash _do_ it?) As such he opened the door a little bit more harshly than he meant to. "Yeah, what?"  
Oh God. Another trick-or-treating kid. "Hi!" he greeted, a bit too cheerfully to be #17, but the rest of the costume fit down to the letter. Except the backpack.  
"We don't have any candy," Jou groaned, starting to shut the door.  
The kid stuck his hand in it. "Jou, it's me!" he half-whined, half-laughed.  
Jou reopened the door. "…Yugi?"  
Yugi nodded vigorously. _Come to think of it,_ Jou thought, noticing the bright yellow streaks through his friend's hair. Those things had to be dang hard to hide - no wonder he kind of flaunted them the rest of the time. "Oh my God," he said with a grin. "Come on in!"  
Honda fell off the sofa he was sprawled over when Yugi entered. "Holy crap, Yugi, is that you?!"  
"What?" Yugi asked innocently, noticing everyone staring at him. "I don't look _that_ different, do I?"  
"Hell yeah," Honda and Jou said in unison.  
"Oh, man," Anzu breathed. "I've never seen you with your hair all… you know… _normal!_ But what possessed you to go as Juunanagou? He's not even your favorite," she added. (This was true; his favorite characters were Goten and Puar.)  
"It was Yami's idea," Yugi smiled, twirling the giant scarf around his finger enough that they could see the Puzzle hidden underneath. "Oh, and speaking of him…" He held up one finger. "He got into either the pocky or the Pixy Stix, or maybe both, and now he's _really_ hyper, so I might not really be into this tonight."  
Silence. Everyone shot him an odd look. "What?" he asked defensively.  
"How can one of you be on a sugar high and not the other?" Honda ventured.  
Yugi shrugged. "I have no idea, but that's how it's going, so there you are…"  
Jou scratched his head. "I don't have a clue what you just said…"  
"How very Vash of you," Anzu said flatly. "Now, what say we get out there and get our candy before those brats down the street do?"  
Yugi grinned. "Sounds good to me!"  
As they went out the door, Jou could be heard muttering something about _"oh yeah, get BOTH of them on sugar-highs… can we spell Pietro Maximoff?!"_  
  
_Two full hours and several full candy bags later…_  
They were exhausted. Anzu and Yugi, that is. Honda and Jou had started on their candy and were now singing the theme from "Little Shop of Horrors."  
"They're starting to scare me almost as much as Yami is…" Yugi muttered, not sure if Anzu heard him or not, and not really caring any. Anzu wondered how Yami could be scaring him _more_ than Honda and Jou.  
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, on their way back to Anzu's house. Anzu and Yugi, that is. Honda and Jou really didn't care if they were going anywhere so long as they had their candy, and they were most certainly not silent. Suddenly, and seemingly totally unprovoked, Yugi shouted, "NO, GOD DAMN IT, AND FOR THE LAST TIME, WE ARE NOT ROLLING HIS HOUSE!!!"  
Everyone stopped and stared at him. Yugi looked around. "Did I say that out loud?"  
"Oh, you kids," a familiar voice said from behind them. "You shouldn't be yelling like that. Whatever would the neighbors think?"  
They all turned. She was wearing a tight two-piece pinstripe suit, with no shirt under the jacket (much to Jou's satisfaction), a tommy-gun hoisted over one shoulder, and a nice gangster hat with lots of wavy golden hair underneath.  
Lots of wavy golden hair.  
Yugi blinked. "Mai?"  
The woman pushed the brim of her hat up with the barrel of the gun, revealing that yes, it was indeed Mai. "What? How do you…?"  
"Oh my gosh, Mai, I had no idea you lived in this neighborhood," Anzu said in a perfectly level tone that revealed she wasn't at all thrilled.  
"Or this city for that matter," Jou added, unable to take his eyes off her chest.  
She recognized his voice. "It's YOU! You of all people!"  
"Is that a real gun?" Honda asked eagerly.  
"Why, yes," Mai replied proudly and proceeded to pump a nearby tree full of lead. Everyone stopped and gaped, except Yugi, who seemed to have spaced out. A few seconds passed following the demonstration, then she leaned over (Jou found himself grinning) and tapped Yugi on the head with the side of the barrel. "Why'd you bring Kaiba's brother? I thought he was old enough to go on his own now."  
"It's Yugi," Jou corrected. "With his hair down," he added.  
"Yugi's hair can go down?" Mai asked in disbelief. It had never occurred to her that maybe it could. She didn't know where she'd gotten the idea that it couldn't, though; hers required a considerable amount of hairspray to stay up, and that was the bangs alone. Not waiting for a response, she continued. "Where're you four off to? Finished the rounds?"  
"We're going on back to Anzu's house," Honda explained. "You wanna come with? We've got more chips than we can eat and more horror movies than we can watch."  
Mai sighed. "…Do you have 'The Poltergeist'?" she said at last. Honda nodded vigorously. "Well then…" She hoisted the gun over her shoulder again. "I guess there are some things little girls never grow out of. Count me in."  
Jou tapped Yugi on the shoulder. "You comin'?"  
Yugi jumped and looked up. "Yeah, of course!" He grinned that cute grin of his and followed along.  
[A minute or so earlier…]  
_NO, GOD DAMN IT, AND FOR THE LAST TIME, WE ARE NOT ROLLING HIS HOUSE!!!_  
The yell was almost as loud outside as it was in. Yami had just asked for a Creme Saver. _<All right, all right, chill out. And I didn't ask about rolling his house.>_  
_You were about to._  
_ <That's true. But I didn't!> _Yami sighed. _<And besides, how the heck is he gonna recognize us?>_  
_ So THAT'S why you chose this costume!_  
_ <That, and Juunanagou is my favorite character. Reminds me of me.>_  
_ Either way, we're not doing it. And I'm taking it upon myself to make sure you NEVER have sugar again. Or caffeine, for that matter. That'd probably be even worse!_  
Yami sighed again. _<All right, all right. I'll just eat chips and watch the Poltergeist…>_ Then he got an evil idea. _<Or make YOU watch it.>_  
_You wouldn't!_  
_ <Watch me.>_  
_ It's reason enough to take the Puzzle apart._  
Yami jumped. _<You dork.>_  
_ If that's the best you can come up with, you're definitely never having sugar again._  
_ <All right… fine…>_ Yami shrugged in resignation. _<You win. I'll be good.>_  
_ Good. Now that we've gotten that settled, let's go back._  
Jou tapped Yugi on the shoulder. "You comin'?"  
Yugi jumped and looked up. "Yeah, of course!" He grinned that cute grin of his and followed along.  
They'd gotten maybe halfway back to Anzu's house when Yugi started to feel something out of the Puzzle that he'd never felt before, and didn't know what it was until he heard Yami's voice, a little fast and almost gleeful. _<I didn't want to do this, little buddy, but you've left me with no choice.>_  
Outside, Yugi stumbled for a second, almost falling over forwards if not for Jou catching him. Jou only had to take one look at the slightly deranged grin on his face to get an idea of what happened. "What the heck did you do?" he asked as Yami stood.  
"He's fine," Yami reassured him.  
Mai was confused. "Who's that 'he' he's talking about?"  
"It's a very long story that none of us fully understands," Anzu sighed, grabbing at Yami's candy bag. "Would you just let it go?" she asked him frustratedly.  
Yami was already stuffing his face with chocolate. "Holy God this stuff is good," he mumbled.  
Now Mai was _really_ confused. A second ago, Yugi had seemed calm and collected, and now he was a raving sugar-crazed psychopath. And… was he taller than he'd been before? She shook the idea out of her head. That was ridiculous. Taller, sheesh.  
Yami suddenly sat down on the ground and yanked off his backpack, then started rummaging around inside. "Ohoho-hoho. Guys, we're not going back to Anzu's house just yet."  
"Oh, good Lord. Where *are* we going then?" Honda muttered.  
No answer. Yami was still looking for… whatever he was looking for in his backpack. It sounded like glass breaking, a balloon popping, and a cat screeching, but finally he produced it unharmed, leaving no explanation behind the sounds. A roll of toilet paper.  
Jou started jumping up and down. "All RIGHT! So who're we doing this time, huh? Who're we doing this time?"  
Yami grinned evilly and pointed to the south. There was a hill. And on that hill was…  
"The Kaiba mansion?!" Mai shouted. "You've gotta be kidding!"  
Yami glared at her. "I do _not_ kid. Ever."  
Anzu wasn't going to accept without offering her two bits. "I'm not going to be a part of this. Not only will we get in an incredible amount of trouble, but it's also REALLY childish and immature!"  
"That was redundant." He pulled another roll out and tossed it to Honda, who looked almost as excited as Jou.  
"I'm above that. And I'm going home!"  
"Suit yourself." He rifled through the pack a little more before pulling out a _third_ roll of TP, causing Mai to start wondering where the heck he kept it all. "What about you, Mai?" he asked before popping a miniature Three Musketeers bar into his mouth.  
Mai looked at him quizzically. She didn't know what Yugi was up to, but whatever it was, this just wasn't how she remembered him from the Duelist Kingdom. He'd been a sweet little kid who could cry at almost anything, and understood exactly what was going on even when no one else did. And he'd always been nice to everyone. That wasn't the guy she was looking at now. It was probably the guy she'd been looking at five minutes ago. And come to think of it… his voice was different, too. It was uncanny. And weird.  
_But what could have brought on such a drastic change in such an incredibly short time?_ she wondered.  
Well, at any rate, Kaiba was a big jerk, though he could probably be attractive if he'd just do something with his hair. "All right then," she said with a smile as she took the roll from his hands. "That's another thing little girls never grow out of."  
And without further ado, the evil quartet started toward Seto Kaiba's house.  
  
"WHAT are you telling me to do?!" Mai almost screamed.  
"Just go up and flirt with the guards long enough for us to sneak over the wall. Then we'll knock 'em out and let you in," Yami explained.  
"How exactly are we gonna do that?" Honda asked. "They've got guns, for God's sake!"  
Yami got that evil smirk on his face again. "Just leave everything to me…"  
Jou shuddered. "You know, you scare me when you smile like that."  
Yami just downed a couple Pixy Stix in reply.  
  
"Oh boys…" Mai put on her best seductress face and strutted closer to them. Damn… of all the nights to wear pumps. Honda had taken the tommy-gun (they didn't trust Yami with anything more dangerous than string, and they were gonna keep the string away from Jou), and they were all ready to climb the kudzu and hop the wall.  
The guards looked at her all right. And her half-open jacket. And turned bright red. "Uh, yes ma'am?" one of them asked.  
"I was wondering if you big boys could help me out," she crooned. "See, I think there's something on my shirt…"  
She'd quickly moved around to the other side of the guards, getting them to look the other way. "Now! Move!" Honda hissed. With no further sound, they hopped onto the wall and across, then Honda headed for the gate while Yami crawled down the wall until he was right behind the guards. Jou made a sound reminiscent of a croak.  
"Uh… guys?" he whispered.  
Honda turned around. Jou's coat had caught on a rock at the top of the wall and, though Honda felt sincerely sorry for him, he knew he couldn't help him get down yet. "Just a sec, Jou…" he murmured.  
Yami sat cross-legged on the wall next to the gate, deciding he'd watch where Mai's conversation with the guards went, when he felt his aibou stir. _What happened?_  
_<I'm not done. Go back to sleep.> _With that, he knocked him out again. Dang… Yugi had come out of it faster than he'd thought he would… he'd have to stop prolonging this and get it over with. Which, in his sugar-frenzied mind, was one of the worst bummers in recorded history. Oh well. He sighed, then cleared his throat loudly. "Hello down there…"  
"What the hell -" one of them started as he turned around, but Yami already had his hand up and facing them. Mai wasn't sure what he was about to do, but she was sure she didn't want to be in the way when he did it. Effortlessly, he engaged his famous (at least to us) mindcrush, and the two stock guards fell to the ground, unconscious.  
Honda winced as he watched. He couldn't recall ever seeing it from _this_ close up, but it looked pretty painful.  
Mai was almost in shock. "_What_ the _hell_ did you just _do?!"_ she demanded.  
Yami popped a Tootsie Roll in his mouth. They were even better, he'd learned, when you let them melt a little in your pocket before eating them. Not to mention they kept you from having to answer awkward questions.  
Jou squawked slightly. "Guys - a little help here -"  
Honda walked back over and rolled up his suit sleeve a little bit, revealing a watch that looked remarkably like a Rolex (though it wasn't). After a second of moving his wrist around, he fired it, blowing the whole dang stone to bits and sending Jou sprawling to the ground.  
With remarkable agility, Yami rolled off the back of the wall and landed softly on his feet as Mai climbed it and hopped delicately to the other side. "Where did you get that?" the former asked, thoroughly interested.  
"I'm a member of the Official James Bond Fan Club," Honda replied proudly. "It was in the welcome packet."  
"Sugoi…" Honda jerked it away as Yami tried to touch it. "Aw, come on. Why can't I play with it?"  
"Because in the state you're in, I wouldn't trust you with anything more dangerous than finger paint."  
Yami sighed dejectedly. "Oh, fine… You win…"  
"He said it!" Jou almost shrieked. "Oh my God, he said it!" He turned on Honda. "You owe me fifty bucks!"  
"What?" the other three asked at the same time in varying tones.  
"Said what?" Yami and Mai asked.  
"You still remember that?" Honda grumbled.  
"We made a bet," Jou explained with a grin. "If Yami Yugi ever says 'You win,' of his own free will, Honda has to pay me fifty bucks."  
"I didn't think he'd ever say it," Honda sighed, reaching into his pocket. "I'm a little short on cash… you can hold out till tomorrow, right?"  
"_Yami_ Yugi?" Mai asked, fully confused beyond belief. "What the hell are you talking about?"  
"It's a very long story that none of us fully understands," Jou replied.  
Yami raised his hand. "I understand it."  
Honda and Jou promptly smacked him over the head. "No you don't, and neither does anyone else," Honda said reprovingly. Yami just scowled and rubbed his head. Jou made a mental note of how far different he was when he was on sugar.  
"Anyway, we got a job to do," Honda continued, hefting his roll of toilet paper. "Jou, you -"  
"Last I checked, Honda, _I_ was in charge here," Yami said indignantly, then pointed to the side. "Jou, you and…" He was about to say Honda, but hey, why just be evil to Kaiba when you can be evil to your friends in the process? "You and Mai take the back of the house; me and Honda will get the front." He pulled a jumbo-size pack of TP rolls out of his backpack (Mai's eyes widened considerably, but apparently Jou and Honda were too excited to care, though for different reasons) and tossed it to Jou. "Leave no tree un-rolled!"  
Jou saluted. "Aye aye, cap'n!" Before Mai could object (and almost before she could grab her tommy-gun) he grabbed her by the wrist and headed around toward the back of the massive grounds of the Kaiba mansion, laughing and singing gleefully as he went.  
For a moment, there was silence out front, in which Yami just stood with an almost wistful quality on his face (though he was still smirking) and Honda just stared in disbelief. Finally, he turned to his smaller friend and said, "You are evil in its purest form, you know that?"  
"One hundred percent natural spring water," Yami replied happily, popping a mini Snickers in his mouth. "And like you said…" He pulled out ANOTHER jumbo-size pack of TP rolls. "We got a job to do."  
"Do you have a hammerspace portal in there?" Honda asked, gesturing at the backpack.  
"Only on Halloween. Now shut up and start rolling."  
  
_Another two full hours later…_  
Yami sat on the wall right next to the gate, where he'd knocked out the guards a while earlier. Honda was standing nearby, watching for Jou and Mai, who (much to Yami's sugary, psychopathic amusement) hadn't yet returned. "Where the heck are they?" Honda wondered aloud.  
He heard a small chuckle from the wall next to him, and wondered briefly if maybe Yami _did_ know more than he was letting on. He also heard a munching sound, and decided not to ask him to share.  
Just then, Jou and Mai emerged and started running across the walk as quietly as they could, though that didn't say much; after all, Jou was wearing big clunker Vash boots and Mai was wearing pumps. "Got back as soon as we finished," Jou panted as they arrived near the other two.  
"Took ya long enough," Yami replied, with a more-than-slightly deranged grin on his face. "You guys weren't_ fooling around_ or anything, were you?" He let out a yelp as the butt of Mai's tommy-gun connected with his head.  
"Pervert!" she shouted, then turned to Honda. "Is he always like this?"  
"No, this is the first time I've seen it," Honda replied, shrugging.  
Yami was rubbing his head when suddenly, his face screwed up a little, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose as though he was starting to get a migraine. "Oh, crap."  
"What?" Jou asked. "You okay?"  
"He's just coming into the sugar crash," Honda suggested.  
Yami shook his head. "No, that's not it - he's waking up - and man is he gonna be mad -"  
Mai looked toward the house, assuming Yami was referring to Kaiba. "I can imagine…" But then… how the heck could he tell? Hmm… after what he'd done to the guards, Mai just wasn't sure _what_ this kid was anymore. Or if he was even human.  
And suddenly, Yami wasn't there anymore, and in his place was the cute little kid with big eyes, who didn't have a clue what his other had just done… yet. He blinked a few times, realizing it was still Halloween night, and he was at Kaiba's house without a clue how he'd gotten there, and the house, lawn, trees, flowers, and a couple of topiaries were all covered in toilet paper. His already huge eyes got wider as he realized what had just happened, and he fell to his knees, staring in shock at the roll-job of the century. "Oh my God…"  
"Yeah, beautiful, ain't it?" Jou asked wistfully. "Even better than the principal's house last year…"  
Mai noticed him, though. Something was different about Yugi… he seemed smaller and less sprawling than before, and he wasn't reveling in what he'd have called a masterpiece just seconds ago… "What's wrong, Yugi?" she asked.  
He looked up. "Mai?" Come to think of it, he _did_ vaguely remember meeting up with her on their way back to Anzu's house… Anzu. "Where's Anzu?"  
"She went home," Honda said simply. "Said she was above rolling Kaiba's house even though there's no way in hell he'd see any of us…" Yami had been right. Little Yugi was awake, and he did not like what he found.  
Jou didn't notice, spreading his arms out to the sky. "This has got to be the biggest house to have ever been TP'd in recorded history!" He sighed. "I am proud."  
"You _do_ realize how bad of an idea this was, don't you?" Yugi asked both his friends and his still-hyper yami. "_Don't_ you?!"  
"I don't see why. Nobody saw us," Mai pointed out.  
Yugi paused, then pointed to a corner of the wall. "Except that." Another one. "And that." And another. "And that."  
Jou, Honda, and Mai followed his gestures with their eyes, straining to see in the darkness, but they all noticed at almost exactly the same time. "Oh ####!" Jou shouted.  
Honda jumped backward. "He's got -"  
"- security cameras!" Mai wailed.  
There was a momentary pause inside. _<Damn. Forgot about those.>_  
"What're we gonna do?" Jou babbled, rushing around the other three in circles. "Whatrewegonnadowhatrewegonnadowhatrewegonnado?!?!?"  
Yugi sighed. "As far as I can tell, our best chance for survival is booking a flight to Canada by sunrise."  
Honda and Jou were already scaling the wall. Yugi followed, waving his legs around chibily as he attempted to get them over the top. Mai managed to grab one of his feet and give him a boost, which surprised him and caused him to fall on his head on the other side. She herself came over last.   
There was a short pause, and then Jou asked the question that was on everyone's mind…  
"Where's Canada?"  
Well, maybe not _everyone's,_ but it was sure on his.  
  
Kaiba woke up later than usual the next morning. Mokuba had been pestering him nonstop the night before, but he'd managed to pull the boy home by quarter to ten. It had been no easy task. Mokuba's puppy-eyes were rivaled only by Yugi's.  
He sighed as he poured himself a big cup of coffee and started looking for the remote. His early news show (pretty much the only show he watched of his own free will, besides Letterman) had started ten minutes ago. Finally, he found it and clicked on the TV in his bedroom just in time to hear:  
"And, in local news… It's being called 'the biggest TP job in recorded history,' and it's right in our hometown! That's right, last night the entire premises of the Kaiba mansion were covered in -"  
It was at that exact moment that he accidentally sprayed the coffee all over the room. He ran to a window and looked out over his front lawn. Then:  
"HOLY ####!!!"  
He didn't know his window was halfway open. The TV voices paused for a second, and then piped up again. "Well, it looks like Seto Kaiba's just discovered the state of his house…"  
Kaiba went on, oblivious. "Whoever did this is gonna die a very slow and painful death." As an afterthought, he added, "And the buffoons who're supposed to be my security team are all fired."  
Just then Mokuba popped in, sporting a very happy grin. "Hey Seto, didja see what somebody did to our house? Isn't it funny?"  
"No."  
Mokuba ignored him. "Oh, and they said on the innernet that two of the guards think they're Twizzlers…"  
Kaiba narrowed his eyes. "When were you on the internet? What have I told you about sneaking downstairs late at night, Mokuba?" The tone was dangerous at best.  
"Uhh… don't do it?"  
"Yes, Mokuba…" he hissed. "But what I wonder is, what _else_ were you doing late last night?"  
Mokuba's face twisted up. "EEEEEWWWWW!"  
Kaiba jumped. "Damn it, that didn't come out right at all!" He bent over and poked his little brother in the chest. "What I mean is, I don't know who rolled our house… but I'm going to find out!"  
"How?" the boy asked innocently.  
He smirked. "My computer and the security camera feeds will tell me."  
Mokuba jumped almost exactly like his big brother had done seconds before. "Uhh, there's no need to do that! The computer wouldn't know, would she?"  
"Oh, yes she would," Kaiba seethed, and with that headed down towards his favorite room, the one where he spent most of his time… the computer room. Not, of course, without Mokuba trying to pull him back by his trenchcoat the whole way, grabbing onto and probably breaking everything he could land one hand on. (He'd crashed in his clothes last night, out of sheer exhaustion. Hey, if you'd been toting a sugar-high Mokuba around town for several straight hours, you would too.)  
He finally reached the room and entered, typing his password into the computer. It rejected it. "Damn it…" He tried typing another one. It was wrong too. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"  
"It's 'Pegasus is a big fat one-eyed loser'," Mokuba said simply. "With underscores between the words. And loser has a capital L."  
Kaiba eyed him suspiciously for a second, then typed it in. It was accepted. "How did you -?"  
"I watched you a couple times," Mokuba replied, smiling nervously. Kaiba made a mental note to change his password. And to something a bit less obvious.  
The computer decided to speak up as he put on the little headset thingy. "Hey Kaiba, have you heard the news? There was a break-in on the property last night!"  
"Access the payroll for the security people," he returned sharply, and when it lit up the screen, he continued. "Good. Now fire them all. And get a want ad in the paper," he added.  
"Bossy, bossy, bossy," the computer sighed, but did it anyway.  
"Now show me the footage the security cameras caught." She did. It was no good, really; they were all in costume and he only recognized one of them. "Is that Mai?" he wondered aloud. There was also a Vash and a James Bond, and a #17…  
He suddenly glared at his brother. "Look at that… a Juunanagou about your height…" Guess who Mokuba had gone as.  
Said brother's eyes went wide. "It wasn't me, niisan! I swear, it wasn't me!"  
"Yeah, right…"  
"It's true, Kaiba," the computer piped up. "He was playing Neverwinter Nights on me all night long."  
"So…" He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin, Mokuba breathing a sigh of relief. "Then who are they? Give me an audio."  
"I don't have one."  
"Say _what?!"_  
"The new security cameras you had installed didn't come with audio features. It's not my fault."  
"Like hell it's not. You've gotta have a lip-reading program in there someplace."  
There was a brief pause. "No, actually I don't. But I'm sure there's one on the internet. You can always find what you're looking for on the internet."  
"There's eight billion web pages out there, and even Google only has 3 billion indexed. How do you expect to find anything?" He sighed and waved one hand. "Well, look, anyway…"  
"I happen to have every search engine out there cross-referenced enough that I can access everything," the computer replied indignantly. "And if you're going to be so bossy about it, I don't think I _will_ look."  
Kaiba bent down and fingered her main power cord. "Aw, what a shame. Does that mean I'll have to pull this?"  
"I was just joking…"  
  
_ A few hours later…_  
"Got it!"  
"Finally." Kaiba made a mental note to get a DSL line someday soon. Dial-up just didn't cut it anymore. He clicked off the TV (with a small protest from Mokuba, whom he couldn't get to leave) and swiveled around in his chair. Mokuba, unno-ticed, crept up beside him to watch.  
"I'll read what they're saying. That okay?" the computer asked.  
"No, just put the text on the screen." She obeyed, and Kaiba's eyes went wide as he saw the transcript.  
_Oh my God… Yeah, beautiful, ain't it? Even better than the principal's house last year… What's wrong, Yugi? Mai? Where's Anzu?_  
"IT'S THEM!!!" he shouted. "Ooh, they _so_ better hope they booked a flight to Canada by now…"  
"Oh yeah, Seto?" Mokuba piped up. "The mail came while the thingy was downloading, and I took a look at it already."  
"Really."  
"Yeah. It was mostly bills and stuff, but one was this…" He held out a postcard that read on the front "VANCOUVER BC, Wish You Were Here."  
Kaiba took it and read the scribbles on the back. "They _did_ book a flight to Canada?" he wondered aloud. "Well then, pack your bags, Mokuba. They wish we were there, so god damn it we're gonna be there!"  
"Yippie!" Mokuba yelled with a grin.  
  
"There goes the helicopter," Honda sighed. "It looks like we're gonna be safe after all."  
"That's great, Honda," Yugi muttered, biting his lip. "But can you please stop standing on my hand now?"  
It turns out Jou had set off an alarm or two as they'd been running, so they'd had to spend the night holed up at Yugi's place, which was closest. They were all out of their last night's costumes and wearing their normal clothes now, with one exception: Yugi didn't have the Puzzle with him. Now they were hiding in a tree just a few feet away from the wall, and Honda (who ironically was the only one who owned a pair of binoculars) was watching from the top. And standing on Yugi's hand.  
"Oh, sorry," he said, and got off.  
"I still think that was really mean of you," Anzu said reprovingly, not looking up from her reading.  
"He deserved it," Jou and Yugi said at the same time.  
Honda raised one eyebrow. "I could have sworn you were the most against it, Yugi."  
"I was the most_ for -_ hey wait, are we talking about the same thing?"  
"Chihuahua _that_, dumbass," Jou growled.  
Anzu scowled. "I was talking about grounding Yami, actually." (At his grandson's request, Sugoroku had hidden the Puzzle someplace, and said grandson was in no hurry to find it.)  
"He deserved it," Yugi repeated.  
"Yeah, but Anzu's right. A whole _week?"_ Honda asked.  
Yugi sighed. "Try to put it in perspective. Eventually, Kaiba's going to realize we're _not_ in Canada, and he's going to come back here and kill us all. (Well, except you Anzu, you weren't involved, but that's different.) Being grounded for a week pales in comparison, doesn't it?"   
"That's true," Jou admitted. "Did he try to get us all killed for some specific reason?"  
"I'd ask him but I'm not speaking to him," Yugi replied in an ambiguous tone. It was either nonchalance or amusement.  
There were a few minutes in which the only sound was that of Anzu turning the pages of her book, and then Yugi spoke up. "Who wants to go out for ice cream?" Everyone chorused a "yeah!" and with that, they were off to Dairy Queen.  
  
And in the darkness that was his abandoned soul room, Yami sulked. "Aw, nutbunnies."  
  
~ * ~ * ~  
  
Please, readers! Leave thine reviews!!! I have a second chapter coming, in which we get to torture Yami Bakura! But it will only appear online if you want it to! SO LET'S SEE THEM REVIEWS!!!  
  
(o^.^o) The Artist Formerly Known As Ed, who likes to sign her masterpieces  



	2. Merry Christmas! Part 1

Happy Holidays

by TAFKAE

Chapter 2: Merry Christmas!

**_Author's note:__ Although it will take me forever to get used to it, I'm calling hikari Bakura "Ryou" and yami Bakura just "Bakura." Note that this will take me forever to get used to._**

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. I don't own Yugi, Yami, Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, Mai, Ryou, or Bakura. Hell, I don't even own a car. Aw, man, now I'm depressed! *bangs head on wall*_

            Yugi's eyes flew open. It was finally here! He jumped out of bed and ran to his window. The world was covered with a thick blanket of snow, and it was still coming down. "Yippee!" As fast as he could, he threw on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt with a Christmas tree on it and "JINGEL ALL THE WAY" in big block letters (he didn't have a clue what it said, or that it was spelled wrong, but it looked Christmassy, and that was why he'd bought it), and of course the Millennium Puzzle, and then raced out the door.

_            Well, someone's__ a little excited this morning, his yami observed with a hint of amusement._

            "I should be!" he replied, out loud, grinning eagerly. "It's Christmas today!!" He skidded round the corner into the living room and made a quick dash for the tree.

            "Owmph!" And found his face planted firmly in the sofa. He'd forgotten about it being moved, and hadn't seen it in the dark. On top of all that, he was certain he detected a small chuckle out of his aibou. _It's not funny, he thought with a scowl as he removed his head from between the cushions._

_            I never said it was, Yami replied quasi-innocently. Yugi crawled over the couch and behind the tree, then switched the lights on. The room was instantly filled with a soft, twinkling, multicolored, almost hypnotic glow. He then proceeded to curl up in a corner of the sofa and watch it, like he did every year. And every year, he'd ended up going back to sleep right there and then. This year, though… this year the ritual would change, albeit slightly. __Could you please help me stay awake?_

_            Sure. So, tell me, what's the point of this holiday again?_

            "I never told you 'bout Christmas?"

_            No. But it must be important if the entire world is so obsessed with it._

_            Hmm. He'd never tried to explain something as basic as Christmas before, so basic was how he decided to keep it. "Christmas is a holiday of giving, pretty much," he began. "People buy stuff, or make stuff, and then give it to their friends. And a lot of people give to charities, too. That's why it's called the season of goodwill."_

_            Ah. There was a moment of silence. __That's not everyone's definition, is it._

            "Well, Grandpa said something about giving presents all day and then getting drunk once I go to bed, but I don't think he meant it…"

            More silence. Just as Yugi was about to ask if he was asleep, Yami spoke up. _Don't put it past him. I did find some 180 proof in the back of the fridge the other day._

_            If I find out you drank it…_

_            Relax. You're underage, I wouldn't want to get you in trouble._

            Still more silence. Then one word. _Halloween?_

            Silence again. _That's different._

_            It still nearly got us all killed._

_            Hey, far as I know Kaiba's still in Canada looking for us, and it was two months ago. We needn't worry._

_            And you still haven't told me… Yami's reticence invited him to continue. __WHAT on EARTH were you THINKING?!_

_            All right, I'll admit it. My sense of rational thought was clouded. Slightly._

            Yugi groaned. "Clouded nothing. It disappeared entirely." There was no reply. "Isn't it amazing what revenge trips can do to people? I know that's what you were after. What were you trying to get him back for, anyway?"

_            Being himself, I think. Don't remember exactly._

            There was yet another pause. "You're having trouble staying awake too, aren't you?" Yugi yawned after about a minute.

_            Oh, hush._

            Five minutes later they were both fast asleep.

            "Yugi? Yugi, wake up."

            The ritual took another unexpected turn. Every year, he was awakened by his grandfather shaking him gently. This year, though, the voice belonged to "Jou?" Yugi opened his eyes and sat up straight. "What're you doing here? It's five in the morning!"

            Jounouchi grinned. "For one thing, it's ten-thirty. And for another, I just thought I'd come a little early and help set up. Besides," he added, "I've got a few surprises I've been meaning to do…"

            Yugi sighed and got off the couch with a yawn. "You'd better not be up to anything evil like last year," he warned.

            Jou bent down and poked his friend in the chest. "Look, I don't know who planted the cherry bombs in Honda's snow fort, but it wasn't me, all right?"

            "Actually, I was talking about setting his room on fire, but I believe you on the snow fort thing." He gently pushed Jou's hand out of the way and headed into the kitchen to get the snacks. "Come on, the others should be here by eleven."

            "Speaking of which," Jou began, following him, "Ryou's coming, right?"

            "Yeah, he said he was," Yugi replied innocently. "Why?"

            "And, uh… is he bringing that ring thingy of his?" He tried to ask it casually and innocently, but it came out sounding almost mischievous. Or perhaps evil. In a Me sort of way.

            Yugi laughed. "That's up to the ring thingy. Say… you're not asking this for any specific _reason, are you?"_

            "Nope. No reason at all. Just curious."

            He scowled. "If it weren't for it being Christmas and the season of goodwill and all, and the fact that I'm incredibly naïve and/or gullible, I'd probably be suspicious." He turned back to the refrigerator. "The chips are in the cupboard to the right of the microwave; just put them on the table by the tree."

            "You're not suspicious at all?" Jou asked, almost in disbelief.

            "I don't know the meaning of the word, Jou…"

            There was a short pause, then Jou picked up the chips. "You are my best friend, Yugi."

            "Thanks!"

_            Nok nok nok._

            Jou looked up from an old Dr. Slump book he'd found. "What was that?"

            Yugi was already headed out of the room. His friend absently watched him go, then followed and poked his head out into the front of the shop.

            "Hi, Ryou!" Yugi said with a grin. "Why didn't you ring the doorbell?"

            "You don't have one," Ryou said simply. "Really ought to get something done about that."

            "Uh…" Jou detachedly pushed his forefingers together. "Did ya bring that ring thingy?"

            Ryou nodded once. "Yes, but why –"

            "Oh, no reason…" Jou returned to the living room, and for a second one could hear something that sounded like "Yesssss!" but it quickly died out.

            Yugi smiled. "Want some chips?"

            Ryou scowled at the doorframe Jou had gone through. "There's something decidedly fishy here…"

            "What do you mean?"

            He shot his friend an odd look. "You're not suspicious at all? He seems _happy about it…"_

            "'Bout what?"

            "Never mind."

            "Jo!!"

            They both turned around to see Honda standing there, a big grin on his face. "Oh hi there, Honda!" Yugi said with a wave.

            "Hey, you hang around Jou a lot, do _you have any idea what he's up to?" Ryou asked._

            Honda cocked his head to one side. "Up to? What do you mean?"

            "I thought not. Never mind." With that, he headed into the living room, grabbing a fistful of chips as he went.

            Honda turned to Yugi. "What's going on here?"

            "I'm not gonna worry my little head," Yugi replied. "If you want a soda, I made sure to get grape."

            "Sure, why not?" said Honda, and he followed Ryou into the living room. "Where are those sodas at, anyways? Oh wait, never mind, I found them." He pulled a can of grape soda out of a bowl full of ice. "Anzu's coming, isn't she?"

            "Hey Yugi, you should really close your door before all the snow comes in," said Anzu's voice from behind them.

            "JESUS CHRIST!" Honda shouted, nearly jumping out of his skin. He whipped around. "It's rude to sneak up on people, you know!"

            "You've just had too much caffeine," Anzu mumbled. "Where should I put the presents I brought?"

            "Anywhere," Yugi chirped. "Is this everyone?"

            "I think there's one more coming," said Jou, grinning, but didn't say who.

            "Really?" said Yugi. "Are you sure?"

            Jou started munching on some chips. "Abfofuffey."

            Anzu cringed away. "That's disgusting, Jou!"

            "Whuff if? Toffig wiff my mouf fuw?" He grinned broader and stuffed even more chips into his mouth. Anzu looked remotely like she was going to hurl.

            Honda walked over and bonked Jou on the head rather forcibly. "She's right, Jou, it's disgusting."

            Jou pouted, but swallowed. "You people are no fun at all... some Christmas party this is gonna be..."

            Forty-five minutes later, the mystery "one more" hadn't shown up (although you have three guesses who it is, and the first two don't count), but Jou kept saying they'd be here any minute, so they'd now resorted to regular party games. They were on charades, and Ryou was up.

            "Two words. First word... sounds like... stop?" The guesses came from various other people. "No... it's.... sounds like 'hello'? Hi! Hi, sounds like hi!" Ryou nodded vigorously. "Sigh. Why. Try. My."

            He nodded again. "My?" Honda mumbled. "Ooh, this one could get interesting."

            "Second word. Foot. Floor. Rug. Table?" Ryou rolled his eyes and shook his head, then continued his frantic hand motions. "Oh, I don't know. Give us another hint," Yugi prodded.

            Then Ryou pointed behind all of them. "Room. Behind. Past." Finally, Yugi actually looked back towards the front of the store and laughed. "Oh, I've got it!" He turned back and doubled over in a wave of giggles. "Somebody else get the door, I don't think I can stand up."

            Jou got up and looked at Yugi oddly for a second, before turning to the front door. "OH!! Mai's here!"

            "YES!" Ryou laughed. "I've only been trying to tell you for the last five minutes!"

            "Aw, fudge monkeys," Jou muttered, bounding to the door.

            "You invited _Mai?" said Anzu in disbelief._

            Jou ignored her and opened the door, letting in a blast of chilly air, and one Mai. "How long you been standin' out there?" he asked. "You cold?"

            "Since about when Ryou started, and if I'm cold I didn't notice," Mai replied, her hair and coat dotted with flecks of snow, and a small smile on her face. "He looks so ridiculous doing charades."

            Ryou averted his eyes and scratched the back of his neck nervously.

            Anzu paused to emphasize the look of disgust developing on her face, then spoke. "You. Invited. _Mai?!"_

            "If it's me you're addressing, then no," said Yugi innocently. "But she's a friend, ne?"

            "Well, who _did invite her then?" Anzu demanded._

            Honda pointed at Jou. Anzu groaned and mumbled something about murdering them both later. "Uh, this is the season of goodwill, right?" tried Yugi, but his words had little to no effect on her expression.

            Ryou, always of course the peacemaker, had a better idea. "Newcomers are it," he said, flashing his cute grin.

            "Yeah, newcomers are it!" Jou repeated, flashing his perverted one.

            Mai scowled, but got in position and started, and the guesses started flying. "Candy. Page. Book." She nodded. "Book! And, uh... close. Slam. Bounce. Baseball. Oh! Hitting Jou over the head with a book!" (The guess came from Anzu.)

            "Actually, what I was thinking was 'What's going to happen to Jou if he tries anything,'" said Mai haughtily. "But you were close enough."

            Jou gulped. Everyone else laughed. Finally, Jou spoke up. "You mean just against you, right?"

            His head was almost instantaneously introduced to a nearby dictionary, courtesy of Anzu. "OW!!!"

            "No," said Anzu calmly. "Anyone's fine."

            "Understood," Jou mumbled insincerely.

            Anzu moved to put the dictionary back on the table by the soda bowl, but accidentally bumped it, and sent it off the edge of the table, spreading ice and assorted soda cans out onto the floor. "...Oops."

            Yugi's eyes went wide. "Oh, man, now we're in trouble..."

            "No we're not," said Jou.

            "Whaddaya mean? Grandpa's gonna come down here, and then -"

            Jou grinned. "Your Gramps ain't home. He ditched when I showed up. Think I heard him mumbling something about a strip club."

            Mai snorted in suppressed laughter. Honda and Anzu glanced at each other, but remained silent. Ryou developed a look of total horror on his face.

            "Well then, let's get the ice cleaned up," said Yugi, sighing in relief.

            Ryou had completely locked up, barely even breathing. _Not home, eh? his yami was muttering to himself. __Oh, this is just too perfect!_

            _About a half-hour and a few stupider-than-stupid games later..._

            "Okay, that's it. I'm bored," said Jou.

            "We would've had more fun if we could've gotten Ryou to play hide-and-seek," Yugi said innocently.

            Ryou had suddenly withdrawn from any and all games after he'd "accidentally" tripped someone in duck-duck-goose (though that's dang hard to play with only six people). No one could understand why that one thing had shaken him so much that he wouldn't play anything else, but then again, they did know he was kind of skittish.

            "Hey, I know," Honda suggested, out of the blue. "We've been putting it off for the whole party, so why not -"

            "Presents!" yelled Yugi with a big, childish grin.

            "I meant lunch, but okay," Honda shrugged.

            "Presentspresentspresentspresentspresents!" Yugi chirped.

            _Calm down! The presents aren't going anywhere, his yami sighed in exasperation, in the tone one would use to address a three-year-old._

            _I dun care! Presents are so much fun!_

            _I shouldn't have let you have that Mountain Dew for breakfast..._

            "The presents aren't going anywhere," said Mai in exactly the same tone.

            "Mountain Duuuuuuuuuuuu..."

            "That would explain a lot."

            Jou reached into the small pile of presents by the wall. "I know which one we oughta do first!"

            Honda moaned. "Aw, man! I wanted to give my present first! It's a really good one..."

            "Well, too bad," said Jou insensitively. "Here it is." He tossed a small cylindrical package to Ryou.

            Ryou looked at it curiously, then at the tag. He felt his stomach sink as his yami's curiosity rose; it was addressed to the latter. _Now what the hell could he... he's gotta be up to something... The now-Yami Bakura stole a suspicious glance at Jou, then took the wrapping off the cylinder and popped the top open._

            Instantly, a giant, fat, springy snake jumped out towards his face. He yelped and practically threw the can across the room. "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!"

            Jou started laughing hysterically.

            When Bakura's heart had resumed its normal rhythm, his eyes settled into a glare, and the glare settled on Jou, and he literally trembled with rage. "All right, wise guy..."

            "Good grief, Jou, you're more suicidal than I thought!" Honda whispered to his friend.

            "What? Why d'ya say that?"

            Bakura took three long strides across the room to reach him, and grabbed him fiercely by the collar. "Step outside."

            Jou waved his hands nervously. "Eh, we can talk this out, right? Like, uh, civilized gentlemen?"

            "Civilized gentlemen don't give each other Springy-Snakes-In-A-Can for Christmas," Bakura hissed.

            "That's enough!"

            They both looked up to see Yami Yugi standing next to them. "Oh, I see we have a chaperone after all," Bakura deadpanned.

            "Look, I don't have many rules here, but 'No Homicide' is one of the big ones," said Yami firmly.

            "You'd be wanting to kill him too," Bakura protested.

            "Wanting to and attempting to are two entirely different things." His scowl opened up into a smirk. "Difference being that the latter is a punishable offense."

            "I love it when they fight like this," Anzu said aside to Mai, and offered a bowl to her. "Popcorn?"

            Mai didn't answer, just stared at the unfolding argument. Yugi was a nice kid, right? And Ryou was a nice kid too, _right? So why were they fighting anyway?_

            Anzu blinked. "Oh well. More for me."

            Suddenly, Mai made up her mind to find out something she'd been wondering about since Halloween. "All right Mazaki, something is up with those two and you're going to tell me what it is."

            "They're both schizophrenic and their alter egos hate each other," said Anzu so quickly that it sounded like she was making it up. Mai made that assumption and shrugged. Schizophrenics, yeah right. She reached over and dug into the popcorn. Maybe this would be amusing… albeit totally and completely inexplicable.

            Bakura, after a long pause in which he and Yami essentially just glared at each other, pointedly released Jou's collar and straightened up. "The next time anybody tries something like that again…" He let the sentence dangle threateningly in the air.

            Naturally, it didn't dangle well enough to faze Yami. "The next time anybody tries something like that again, you'll talk it out like civilized gentlemen."

            "You heard what I said about civilized gentlemen," Bakura grunted. "Any Springy-Snake-In-A-Can takes the giver off that list."

            "I thought attempted murder –" Jou started, but was abruptly cut off by a vicious glare from Bakura, and decided it would be in his best interests to shut up.

            "Now…" said Yami quietly, "without any further outbursts of that sort, let's return to the presents."

            "All right!" said Honda, digging into the heap. "Hold on, Yug', this one's for you…" He blinked, then searched again. "Now where did I put it?"

            Yami was returning to his spot when something on the snack table caught his eye. _Are those Skittles?_

            _Aw, fudge monkeys, cried Yugi, and probably would have gone quite pale if he'd been the one in control of his body at the moment._

            Yami reached into the small bowl of candy and pulled out a single piece. _Oh dear. If it had been anything else… anything else at all… I could have resisted. He stared at the Skittle, turning it over and over in his hand. __So elegant in its coarseness! So complicated in its simplicity!_

            _Aibou, no! You've been clean for two months! Don't blow it now!_

            It was too late. He'd popped the Skittle into his mouth. It was strawberry. He grabbed a handful and returned unobtrusively to his spot on the floor, but with a small smile on his face.

            He was the King of Games. He never lost. But in the war against sugar addiction, he just had.

            He'd just finished the handful and had every intention to get another when Honda spoke up. "Hey, look at that. It was in my coat pocket all along!" His classmate pulled a small package out of his pocket and handed it to him. "Here ya go, man. Merry Christmas and whatever."

            Yami raised one eyebrow, then let his aibou emerge again. _It looks like a booster pack or something, Yugi thought absently before pulling off the wrapping paper. And it wasn't even a full booster pack – only three cards fell into his hands. But it was what was printed on the cards that made his eyes go wide. He looked up and stared at Honda. "Honda, where did you get these?" he asked in shock and disbelief._

            "Well, I was taking a walk at the beach a little while ago and there they were," said Honda as if it was no big deal. "They're a little waterlogged, but they should probably still work."

            Anzu leaned over Yugi's shoulder, and her eyes widened as well. "Oh my God! I thought those were gone forever!"

            "So did I," Yugi breathed.

            "Okay, I cave. What is it?" said Jou.

            Yugi turned the cards over to show them to the others. They were the three remaining pieces of Exodia that had fallen overboard on the way to the Duelist Kingdom. Bakura nearly gagged on his soda.

            "Aw, that's not fair!" Mai proclaimed, breaking the awkward silence that followed (punctuated only by Bakura's coughs). "I've always wanted one of those..."

            Honda smiled proudly. "Well, Yugi?" he said, almost teasingly. "What do you say...?"

            Yugi looked up at him again, teary-eyed, then ran over and hugged him. "I love you, man!"

            Jou started chuckling. Honda shot him a glare. "Oh, shut up. And you get off."

            Yugi withdrew obediently, with the look on his face of a little boy who just got the toy Jeep he asked Santa for.

            Mai was trying incredibly hard not to say, "Awwwww!" Well, hey, he looked so damn _cute! That should not be possible in a fourteen-year-old!_

            Anzu shoved another bowl in front of her. "Want some Skittles?"

            _WHAT?! Damn it, those are MY Skittles!!! Yugi had to put a lot of effort into suppressing his yami this time, his face noticeably contorting from the exertion._

            Jou noticed. "Uh, Yug'? What's wrong?"

            Yugi opened his eyes and met Jou's. "Why did you bring Skittles?"

            "I like Skittles," Jou replied simply.

            "Did it even once occur to you that Yami might like Skittles too?" Yugi sighed, already knowing the answer.

            There was a short pause, then Jou spoke again. "Oops."

            "Who's Yami?" asked Mai aside to Anzu.

            "That's what we call his alter ego," said Anzu, again so promptly that Mai was convinced she was pulling her leg. "See, he can't seem to come up with anything better."

            Bakura smiled and, as he was very good at doing, started imitating Ryou. "What's wrong with Skittles?" he asked. (Well, the question was genuine, but he had a feeling they wouldn't want to tell _him.)_

            "Ohhh..." Yugi shuddered. "That's right, you weren't there the last time he had sugar..."

            "Oh yes, I remember that quite clearly," said Mai. "You were acting very weird and no one's telling me why."

            "I _did tell you!" Anzu protested._

            "You're not answering my question," Bakura stated as patiently as he could.

            "He's unpredictable, sadistic, and dangerous when he's on sugar," said Yugi.

            "How's that different from when he's not?"

            "It's to a much greater degree."

            "Ah." Bakura had to try hard not to smirk. "And uncontrollable, ne?"

            Yugi nodded. "Extremely. If I let him get at the Skittles we're screwed."

            Bakura stopped the imitation as abruptly as he'd started it, and smirked profusely. "Thank you for that information, you gullible fool."

            Jou and Mai cringed almost simultaneously. "Ooh, I _hate when he does that..." the former groaned. "Dang hard to tell them apart sometimes..."_

            Yugi had gone quite pale. "Okay, now I think we're screwed whether he gets at the Skittles or not."

            _Come on, aibou, just let me have just a few Skittles… don't make me do something drastic…_

            _I am not going to support this! For the last time, NO! He frowned and nervously returned to his seat, with the appearance of one in deep thought._

            _You've got no sense of fun._

            _Get ahold of yourself! I don't even want__ to know exactly what happened on Halloween, and I definitely don't want it to happen again!!_

            _Season of good will…_

            _Look, I may be naïve, but even I'm not that__ naïve._

            There was a short pause. _Please…?_

            _My mind's made up. I'm not letting you out._

            A few feet away, Bakura fingered the Millennium Eye through his pocket, and his smirk deepened again. _Aw, come on. It just can't be this easy!_

            Yami fumed, but resolved that at the first chance he got, he _would have more of that fruity sweet goodness._

            Then Bakura got an idea. Why not give the poor guy a chance? Unpredictable, sadistic, dangerous, uncontrollable people were always a little bit easier to kill, especially if they were so sugared-up that they couldn't even see straight, much less think straight.

            But he would wait. After all, maybe an opportunity to conveniently present that chance would present itself while gifts were still being given. He sighed and retreated for now, shoving Ryou out into the world. He hated waiting, but he'd gotten very good at it.

            "So, whose present is next?" Jou asked. "Maybe we oughta go in a circle or somethin'…"

            Mai smiled in a way that could make anyone with common sense suspicious. "I brought one for you." She walked to the pile and pulled out a box wrapped in blue, then handed it to Jou. He blushed and took it, then pulled off the wrapping paper.

            Everyone else took one look at it and laughed.

            Jou turned bright pink. "I doth believe mine sister's present hath got mixed up with mine own…"

            "No, that's yours," said Mai almost evilly. Bakura speculated that she might almost make a good rival. "_I certainly liked it."_

            "Well, yeah," said Yugi, wiping a tear out of his eye, "but you're a girl! Of course you're going to like Barbies!"

            Anzu jumped to her feet. "Hey, that's a total stereotype! _I personally __hate Barbies!!"_

            "You're not the only one," Jou muttered, dropping the Beach Bum Barbie like it was crawling with maggots. "How about, eh, NEXT PRESENT, 'k?"

            "Sure, why not?" said Yugi, jumping up and running over to the pile, then pulling out a small box and handing it to Anzu. She took it with a look of skepticism on her face, then opened it. "I saw it on BarnesandNoble.com and I thought you'd like it," he added.

            She opened up the box, then cast an odd look at the package inside. "'The Ultimate Paperback Book Cover'?" She took it out of the wrapping and looked it over, and appeared then to see why it was called that, and smirked. "Oh, you were right, Yugi! I _am going to like this very much!" She looked around. "But I'll need to test it. Where's a paperback? Oh wait, never mind, here it is." She pulled a random book from the shelf and put the cover on it, then looked at Jou. "Hold still."_

            "What?" said Jou.

            CLANG!!!!

            Anzu took the cover off of the book and put the latter back in its spot. "Yep! Works like a charm! Having to read The Scarlet Letter will never be the same..."

            Honda grabbed the discarded package and read the back, with Mai and Ryou leaning over his shoulders. "'Appears to be a simple personalizable book cover, but actually makes your paperback into an iron-back with a piece of sheet metal in each cover.'"

            Jou rocked back and forth, his eyes in spirals. "Could you repeat that? My ears are still ringing..."

            "Poor guy. All but one present so far, he's had to suffer..." said Ryou as he grabbed some chips.

            "You'd better not be doing impressions again," said Honda.

            Ryou raised one eyebrow. "He's not physically _capable of saying 'poor guy'."_

            "Oh... yeah, that's right. Gotcha."

            Anzu picked up a box wrapped in green with little Christmas trees all over it, then handed it to Ryou. "Here. Couldn't remember what it was you like, so I kinda played it safe."

            "Thanks," he said quietly as he carefully took the paper off, revealing a small box of store-bought sugar cookies with red and green frosting. His heart sank again, but he didn't have the heart to tell her he was allergic to Red 3. And judging by the bright crimson shade of the icing on half the cookies, they had every different number of red that wasn't a known carcinogen. And maybe a few that _were, he thought, forcing a smile and setting the cookies down next to him, near the fallen Springy-Snake-In-A-Can. He didn't trust store-bought cookies._

            _And with good reason, Bakura added. __I managed to slip some cyanide into a batch a few years back. It's so easy to poison people who trust huge commercial ventures..._

            Ryou went quite pale as the revelation dawned on him of just _why they'd never caught the cyanide-cookie guy. He'd kind of been nine years old at the time._

            The cyanide-cookie guy chuckled menacingly.

            Suddenly, Jou thought of something. "Hey Mai, if you got me a freakin' _Barbie for Christmas, what'd you get Yugi? I mean, I was under the impression you liked me, and I know you like Yugi better than me…"_

            "What makes you say that?" Mai asked innocently.

            "Everybody likes Yugi better than me," he replied. "So what'd you get him?"

            Whoops. "Uhh…" Mai looked around. It had just occurred to her that in her frantic rush to get her hair done in time that morning (not that it had been worth it, what with the wind and all), she'd left Yugi's present right on top of her bed. It really hadn't been a very good present, either. She would have to think fast.

            Fortunately, Mai was very good at thinking fast. She didn't like the idea she'd come up with, but maybe she could pretend Yugi was somehow comparable to her little brother. Just as fast, she realized that 1) that wasn't going to happen and 2) everyone else was staring at her, and decided to herself, _Aw, screw it, and leaned over and planted a kiss on his lips._

            Needless to say this surprised him. For a second, he stiffened, wondering hysterically what the hell she was doing, and then relaxed when it occurred to him that hey, he _liked this!_

            For some reason, Jou turned a few shades of red and started shaking.

            Yugi turned more and went totally limp.

            Maybe about ten or fifteen seconds later, Mai pulled away and left Yugi as a bubbling blob of jelly in his folding chair. Well, not literally, but you get the idea. Now everyone else was staring even _more at her, and this time not in questioning but in mixed disbelief and disgust. She ignored them and turned her thoughts back to herself. __You know, for someone who just hit puberty he's a really__ good kisser, she thought. __I'd never be able to tell just by looking at him, but still…!_

            Bakura saw his opportunity knocking and quickly answered the door. He reached into a bowl, grabbed a single Skittle, and banked it off Yugi's head.

            Yugi hardly noticed, until a second later a strange feeling came over him, one he could only recall feeling once in his life before, and he vaguely heard his other say, _Sorry about this, kiddo, but you left me with an opening and no choice but ta use it!_

            He almost panicked. The one other time he'd felt it had been on Halloween. Normally he would have been ready for this, but he hadn't recovered enough from Mai's little Kiss Of Death to put up much resistance. He slumped against the back of his chair and his eyes fell shut, but only for a second before his body was up and his mind was left down.

            And with that, Yami started into the Skittles with a yet unseen frenzy.

            Bakura took a conveniently contrived piece of chalk from the hearth where he sat and scratched out a single tally mark. On the brick he had designated as his own, of course.

            Jou groaned. "Oh, no. Mai, I think you ruined something."

            "What?" said Mai.

            Bakura folded his arms and smirked. "Well, of course! If it hadn't been for you, the idiot we have fondly dubbed 'Yami' would still be hiding away in his soul room. Now I have seized the bull by the horns and –"

            CLANG!!!

            His face had just been introduced to Anzu's new book cover. She dusted off her hands and grinned, picking up the chalk that lay next to the twitching, swirly-eyed grave robber. "So, which of these bricks is mine?" she asked as she noticed the tally mark.

            "As soon as I can see again, woman, you're dog meat," he mumbled, still lying on his back on the hearth.

            Mai just blinked. "Okay, what the hell just happened?"

            "Argh… How many times do I have to explain this to you before it sinks into your ditzy, blonde skull?!" Anzu cried out in exasperation. "They're. Both. Split. Personality. Cases!"

            "So sue me! I thought you were joking about that!" Mai protested.

            "I wasn't, you dumb blonde!"

            "Baka ballerina!"

            "Brainless whore!"

            "Ladies, ladies," said a voice that could only be Yami's, and sure enough it was, and its owner was soon standing between them, with a hand on each of their shoulders, pulling them apart. "We don't need to fight over this… there's plenty of me to go around."

            Jou pumped one fist in the air. "Whoo! That was a good one! And it's even right…"

            The girls didn't seem to like it as much. Yami barely managed to duck out of the way of Anzu's book. "Hey, hey, I was joking! JOKING!"

            "One more joke like that and you won't be playing any more games for a long, long time," Anzu hissed.

            His eyes lit up. "GAME! That's what we need to settle this!"

            Everyone fell over, even Bakura, who had just barely managed to sit up again. "God damn it, you baka, do you have to solve _everything with a game?!" he shouted indignantly._

            "Well, how should I solve it, just _automatically send them to the shadow realm like you do?"_

            "YES!"

            Yami bent over and wagged one forefinger in Bakura's face. "Ah don't _thank so!" he said in a really funny-sounding Southern accent._

            Bakura smirked. "You look like Pegasus' Doppelganger."

            Yami blinked twice. "His… what? OH, wait –" he scowled. "That, my friend, was an insult. I chall-"

            "Spare me," Bakura deadpanned before he'd finished. "Besides, I honestly don't care if I never see another Duel Monsters card for the rest of my life."

            "I was _going to challenge you to a different game," Yami grunted, producing a deck of black cards with three letters on the back…_

            "UNO?" asked Honda in surprise and disbelief. "Count me in!"

            "Me too!" said Jou.

            "But… but…" Yami protested, "but I wanted to kick his butt on my own!"

            Bakura snorted. "_You're the one who's going to regret that challenge. Duel Monsters, maybe. Duel __Dice Monsters even, maybe. But I __never – not to __anyone – lose at Uno."_

            "He's off his nut," Mai mumbled aside to Anzu.

            "What was your first clue?" Anzu replied snidely.

            All the boys had already sat down and were dealing. The girls decided to stay out of this particular match, just in case the yamis got mad and decided to use their shadow powers to try and get an edge. "Seven cards each," said Yami gravely, dealing out the cards. "We'll make it a two-point match – every time you empty your hand is a point."

            "Gotcha," said Jou, grinning wildly as he looked at his hand. A couple of Draw Twos and a Reverse; not bad for the first draw.

            Honda looked over his hand, which contained nothing but reds, and sighed despondently. He knew he was toast.

            Yami took a look at his two Wilds and couldn't believe his luck.

            Bakura, between the Millennium Eye and the four Wild Draw Fours in his hand, figured he had this one in the bag. For one thing, he was certain no one knew he'd brought the Eye…

            "Clockwise starting with the dealer's left," said Yami. "That, uh… that makes it your turn, Bakura."

            Bakura smirked and laid a blue four on the red four that was already there. He was going to toy with them a while before they would get to see what was in his hand. Jou played a blue two.

            Honda mumbled something incomprehensible and drew some cards off the top of the deck – all reds, too! – eventually stopping when he found a red two and laid it back down again. Now he was convinced that not only was there a God, but it hated him, too.

            While Yami made his move (a red nine), Bakura took the opportunity to take an indirect look at Jou's cards. All right, so maybe he wasn't _used to being able to read minds, but it was a handy skill. Jou had no Wilds, and his only green was a Reverse. The grave robber chuckled slightly, and when his turn arrived, he laid down the conveniently available green card __he had, which happened to be a nine._

            Jou laid down his Reverse, just as Bakura had planned it.

            Bakura played a Wild Draw Four and, in an uncharacteristic move, stuck out his tongue. "Draw four and skip your turn, _pal."_

            Yami grumbled, but complied. Who was he to break the rules?

            Wait a minute. _Break the rules? he thought. __I didn't think anyone was low enough to cheat at Uno, but what if he did__ bring the Eye with him?_

            "Oh, and the color is…" Bakura pretended to think – he already knew exactly what he was going to choose – "…green."

            Honda mumbled evil things and kept drawing until he finally got a green five and laid it down. By now he had about half the deck in his hand. And they were all reds. He couldn't help but wonder if the deck was stacked.

            Jou was thinking that Mai was stacked, but he quickly turned his attention back to the game. A green five. He had a red five, so he laid that down.

            Bakura was tempted to read Yami's mind, but knew his fellow artifact spirit would be able to sense it, and it just wasn't worth the risk. But after several times of glancing between his cards and the back of his enemy's, he gave up and decided to chance it. Yami had no blues.

            On the other hand, one thing he _did have was an uncannily good magic sense. "I was right!" he declared, pointing angrily at Bakura. "You __are cheating!"_

            "WHAT? You liar!"

            "Am not."

            "Are t- oh, for God's sake, I don't have time for this…" He laid down a blue five on the pile. "Just move already."

            Yami continued to glare.

            "What? Make your move, jerkass, I don't have all day."

            "You do now. I'm gonna hold up the game until you can prove you're not cheating."

            "Uh…" Jou raised one finger. "Question. How _would he be cheating?"_

            "He's got the Millennium Eye, remember?" Honda answered.

            "Oh yeah. Then, uh… how would you tell?"

            Yami smirked in an almost goofy way that made Bakura want to retch. "It is but one of my many abilities, my friend," he said quietly.

            "I ought to kill you right here and now," Bakura hissed.

            "Try it, _cheater."_

            "I AM NOT A CHEATER!"

            "What are you then?"

            Something snapped. He didn't have a witty comeback. So he decided to use brute force. It was always so much more effective. Throwing down his cards (facedown of course), he jumped to his feet, grabbed Yami by the arm, and dragged him out into the front room of the store. "ACK!" Yami shouted. "Hey, where're we going? At least let me get some more Skittles first!"

            The bell on the front door jingled as the grave robber shoved his way through the six-foot snowdrift into the street, dragging the hyperactive pharaoh behind him.

            "What the hell is this about?!" Yami demanded as soon as he'd managed to wrench his arm free. Both of them seemed to be ignoring the fact that all their limbs were quickly going numb.

            "Time to play a _real game," replied Bakura with a smirk. "And I don't need to cheat to win at this one."_

            "So you _were cheating!" his adversary said triumphantly, and did a little dance. "I waaaas riiiiight, I waaaas riiiiight…"_

            _This can NOT be the same guy who kicked my ass in episode 12, he thought to himself. "Stop that goddamn dance and let me kill you already!"_

            "Oh, is that what you dragged me out into the freezing cold to do? I don't think so. I'm going back inside." Yami shivered. "Besides, it's gotta be at least twenty below and since the sidewalk is covered in slush, so are my socks."

            The Millennium Ring glowed a pretty shade of blue-green. "You're not going anywhere, punk!"

            Yami quickly but calmly took two steps forward and punched Bakura in the nose. "Thou shalt not separate me from mine Skittles," he said with a somewhat goofy grin as he shook out his hand.

            Bakura's rejoinder was a small moan from where he lay on the sidewalk, with swirly eyes, and slush seeping into his hair. After a brief moment of debate, Yami grabbed him by one ankle and dragged him back inside the shop.

            The others were just inside the door, but Mai was the one to speak first. "What happened? We couldn't see past the snowdrifts."

            Yami's eyes drifted to the left. "We played a game… I won." Then he looked back at them and smirked. "I always win."

            "I don't know. I think Bakura was winning at OOOF!" Jou was the one to attempt speech. Yami was the one who introduced his fist to his friend's gut. Not too hard, really, just hard enough to knock the wind out of him before he could finish the unwanted comment. Observation, yes; legal in this house, no.

            Authority is your friend. Dictatorship is your good friend. A small fellowship of people who are actually _afraid of you is your best friend. As far as he could remember, that had always been his policy, and it had never failed him before._

            What he perceived as "as far as he could remember," though, wasn't actually that. It was what his sugar-frenzied mind perceived to be good at the moment.

            But what he perceived to be a great situation simply couldn't last, because whilst he was basking in his arrogance, he felt something he hadn't felt in all of twenty minutes… an awakening. _Pain… mumbled the voice of his aibou. __Curse the Skittles… curse all the sugar._

            _Aw, nutbunnies, was all he could say before said aibou shoved him aside to investigate his surroundings._

            Honda noticed first, as he often did. "Hey, welcome back to the waking world," he said flatly.

            Yugi immediately sat down on a nearby folding chair and rubbed his temples. "I hate when he does that," he muttered.

            "I'm confused but I'm starting to not expect understandable answers from you people," said Mai.

            "What're we gonna do now?" Jou wondered aloud.

            Yugi shrugged. "Order a pizza, I guess."

            "Yeah, and maybe Mai can get us some beer," Honda suggested. "The way things are looking now, I think we're gonna need it."

*END CHAPTER 2 PART 1*

So how'd you guys like it? *crickets chirp* Oh… kay… nobody reads it… well, if you do, sign yer name in the review book. I wouldn't mind a "favorite author or story" status either *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge*…


	3. Merry Christmas! Part 2

Happy Holidays

by Tafkae

Chapter 2.5: Merry Christmas! (continued)

_Let me note that this chapter is actually quite old; I just never got off my rear and uploaded it until SOMEBODY (coughCDRWcough) started yelling in my ear and threatening to kill me if I didn't upload. So here it is._

_Chapter 2-and-three-quarters is in progress but I'm a lazy little freak._

_There will now be a quick recap. Yami got on a sugar high again thanks to Bakura, who wants to kill him. Unfortunately, he's now learning it's even harder when Yami's off his nut. The boys all played Uno (except Yugi; he was unconscious at the time), and when Bakura started using the Millennium Eye to cheat, Yami caught him! After a brief verbal exchange, Bakura yanked him out into the snow and tried to play that one shadow game with him like he did to Pegasus in episode 38. Yami punched him and dragged him back inside, and then Yugi woke up. The six of them (or eight if you count the yamis) have now decided to pay a visit to a local restaurant of much decorum…_

"Does anybody know the number for Domino's?" asked Jou eagerly.

_sweatdrop__ Well… it's got decorum to them…_

"Not a clue," said Yugi. "And we can't find the phone book anywhere."

"So let me get this straight," Mai began. "You have your dictionary conveniently accessible by the phone, but your phone book is missing?"

"Yeah, and now every time Grandpa tries to call the Yamadas down the street he wonders why he gets a voice telling him what a yam is."

Jou chuckled. "Well, games are one thing, but your Gramps _sucks_ at real life."

"That is so true!" Honda agreed.

"He does not," Yugi mumbled, but it wasn't that sincere.

_Yeah he does, and you know it,_ Yami replied, but Yugi ignored him; he'd decided that was what he was going to do for the rest of the day.

"Where does he find the numbers?" Anzu wondered aloud.

Honda shrugged. "Got me."

"I guess we'll just have to do it eat-in," said Jou dejectedly.

"Yeah, but what're we gonna do about Bakura? We can't just leave him here alone," Yugi pointed out.

"Why not?"

"Because then we wouldn't have anyplace left to have the party."

"Point taken."

"We could tie him to a chair," suggested Anzu.

_Yeah! Hog-tie 'im and throw 'im in the closet! W00T!_

_Sober up, will you?!_ He turned his attention back to his friends. "No, that's kind of excessive…"

"Is it? He practically killed you, y'know," said Jou.

"Did he? I wouldn't know. I seem to have selective amnesia."

There was a momentary pause. _You're mocking me, aren't you._

_Did you figure that out on your own, or did you need Dr. Watson to help you?_

"Uh… yeah. But we could take him with us, maybe?" Mai proposed.

"Yeah, and then we could keep an eye on him!" said Jou. "Great idea!"

"What's going on?" came a somewhat sluggish voice from the floor nearby. "Did I go and do something I wouldn't do? Again?"

"That depends. Are you a homicidal freak with a bloodlust the size of Texas?" Jou asked almost instinctively.

"And an ego the size of Canada," Honda added.

"Not the last time I checked," Ryou replied, sitting up and rubbing his nose. "Ow."

"Sorry about that," said Yugi.

"We're getting pizza, but we really don't want any trouble," explained Anzu. "So… I would hope you can stay behaved while we're there…"

"Don't worry. Between the paperback and whatever else happened, I think you guys really clocked him a good one." He smiled. "I doubt we'll have any trouble."

(Any middle school graduate will see the foreshadowing in that sentence.)

"All right, then!" said Mai, clapping her hands once. "I'll drive."

"You're the only one who's old enough to," Jou pointed out. Mai ignored him, and with little further ado, everyone went out to her convertible outside…

…which really wasn't made to seat six, so at least half of them were glad to be out of it when they arrived at Domino's. The snow was still coming down heavily, and there were piles of it all over the parking lot, regardless of the fact that it had been plowed just that morning. It was into one of these snow piles that Jou fell the moment he opened his door, laughing amidst the "Fa-la-la-la-las" he and Honda were singing at the top of their lungs. Anzu, about halfway there, had completely given up on telling them to shut up, and had instead begun to sing along, which caused the other three or so sane people to break into carols as well as a sort of "why the hell not" reflex.

"So what's everybody want on the pizza?" Mai asked, smiling bigly as she stepped out of the car.

"Mushrooms!"

"Extra cheese!"

"Pineapple!"

"Pepperoni, you can't forget the pepperoni!"

"Sausage!"

"Bacon!"

"Anchovies!"

Silence. Everyone stared at Ryou. "What?" he protested. "I like anchovies."

"We're not getting anchovies," said Mai.

"Why not?"

"Because I have to pay for this pizza. There will be nothing on it that _I_ don't like."

Ryou sighed, but said nothing more. Yugi kind of looked sideways and up at him and smiled. "Aw, cheer up. That really can't be the _only_ topping you like."

"…There's cheese…"

"You people are so boring," said Jou in annoyance, walking into the lobby. Anzu, who was holding the door, kicked him in the shin as he went past. "OW!"

"Merry Christmas," said the guy behind the counter; he couldn't have been more than two years older than his customers. "Welcome to Domino's Pizza. What can I do ya for?"

"Two large pizzas," said Mai, "one with everything but anchovies, and one with half-extra-cheese, half-everything-but-anchovies."

"And all three kinds of breadsticks!" Honda added.

"Two of each," said Jou.

"I never would have thought Domino's would be open on Christmas," Yugi remarked.

"They only make the Jews work today," the guy behind the counter replied casually. "Two large pizzas, one-and-a-half everything but anchovies, one half extra cheese, and two breadsticks, Cheesy Bread and Cinnasticks. That right?"

Jou and Honda nodded vigorously, thin trails of drool hanging from their mouths at the mere thought of Cinnasticks. Anzu scooted away in disgust.

Yugi glanced around at the empty restaurant. "It doesn't look like we'll have any trouble finding a seat," he commented. "Don't get much business today?"

"Yeah, so there's just me and the two cooks. We've pretty much been playing cards all day," said the guy. "Did you know there's a way to do tarot with Uno cards?"

"Hey, there's a way with Duel Monsters, so why not?" Ryou mumbled.

"Anyways, the pizzas ought to be done in about ten minutes or so. You're not in a hurry, ne?"

Jou shook his head. "For the Cinnasticks, we've got aaaaaaall day."

"And for the pizza and breadsticks and Cheesy Bread," Honda added with a nod.

"Pizzaaaaaaa," Jou sighed contentedly.

"Hey look, a pinball machine!" exclaimed Yugi, pointing to the left.

Jou and Mai grinned and turned to each other. "I could kick your ass at that with both flippers taken off," they said in unison.

"That was creepy," said Honda and Ryou at the same time.

"So was that," Anzu added, then looked around. "Hey, wasn't Yugi supposed to say that with me?"

"Nope, I'm busy lamenting," Yugi replied from the pinball machine. Everyone looked over at it, where he was quite easily resting his chin on the glass protecting the playing surface. "What did Double-D say that one time? 'Curse these short legs'?"

"Oh, I thought you were lamenting 'cause you're out of quarters or something," said Jou.

"That too, but it doesn't matter if I'm not tall enough to see where the ball is, now does it?" He had those cheesy anime tears running down his face.

"Maybe they've got a stepstool or something?" Mai suggested.

_I could help._

_Not a chance. You're still hyped from that sugar._

_Not really. I can think rationally, so I must not be._ He sighed. _And besides, there's nothing else to do while we wait for the pizza to get done._

_I have no way of knowing you're not just bluffing to get out. I'm not gonna fall for that._

_I'm not bluffing. I'm serious._

"Yeah, sure," said the guy from behind the counter. "Hey, I've got an idea. If any of you guys can beat me at pinball -" here he hopped over the tabletop and grinned "– I'll throw in a free pizza, winner's choice of toppings."

_The deal doesn't get any sweeter than this._ Yami smirked inwardly. _You know I'd be able to win this in a heartbeat,_ he said dangerously. _So you might want to let me play before I let myself play…_

Yugi twitched, but finally resolved he _really_ didn't want another headache like the one from half-an-hour ago. A second later, Yami was standing there, smirking at the cashier. "I accept. And I want a 'Meat Lovers' pizza, sucker."

"My name's Chad, not 'sucker,'" said the cashier. "Besides, you're the sucker. I _never_ – not to _anyone_ – lose at pinball."

Yami smirked more, if that was possible at that point. "Neither do I."

"Actually, there was that one time when Jou beat you by kicking the machine hard enough to make it go Tilt in the middle of your turn," Honda said cautiously.

"Shut up and give me a quarter," Yami snapped, extending his hand. Honda pressed a quarter into it, and Yami pressed the quarter into the slot, pulled the plunger, and let the ball rip into the machine.

_Fifteen minutes later…_

Jou and Honda were still stuffing their faces with the everything-but-anchovies pizza. Ryou was contentedly munching on a piece of the extra-cheese. The girls were busy with breadsticks, and everybody, including Chad, was watching over one or the other of Yami's shoulders. Chad felt a bead of sweat run down his face. _What the heck _is_ this kid?!_ he thought to himself.

"This is amazing," Jou said after a swallow. "I have _never_ seen _anybody_ keep the first ball in play this long!"

"And I got sixteen extras," Yami added gravely. "I seem to be getting rusty. It's not everywhere you can find a real pinball machine anymore."

"SIXTEEN?!" exclaimed Chad.

"Yeah, terrible isn't it? I usually have at least twenty-three within fifteen minutes." He said it casually, like it was an everyday occurrence. Of course, if he went to arcades more often, it probably would have been.

Chad's mouth moved, but no words came out. Yami already had a score over two hundred million, and he was still on the first ball. The remaining two balls, plus the sixteen – oh, wait, now it was seventeen – extras he'd won, made nineteen more balls until his turn was over.

The pizza guy knew he was screwed. He prayed for a miracle.

"What should we do if I lose?" said Yami, out of the blue. "I mean, it's only fair that both of us should have stakes."

"What? Oh, um…" Chad thought for a second "… what about having to do that stack of Christmas Eve and Weekend dishes sitting in the kitchen?"

Yami nodded. "A gruesome and undesirable task. Very fitting. But you'd better add two orders of breadsticks to your end so it'll balance."

"I thought- oh, never mind. Deal," he sighed in resignation.

"Me likey the breadsticks."

Honda sighed. "Or maybe the sugar hasn't completely worn off after all…"

"Shut up."

"You owe me a quarter."

"I'll give you a couple of breadsticks."

"Deal."

Just then the bell rang at the door, around the corner a ways, and the little voice of the answer to Chad's aforementioned prayer piped up. "I never woulda thought Domino's was open on Christmas!"

Mai and Honda recognized it instantly, but reacted differently. Honda stiffened and bolted out the opposite door from where the voice was coming from. Mai turned her head toward it and raised one eyebrow. "Well, well. What a way to ruin a perfectly good holiday."

Ryou and Anzu didn't catch it right away. "What? What's wrong?" asked the former.

Mai ignored him, as so often happened, and tapped Yami on the shoulder instead. "Um, I think now would be a good time to let Chad use the pinball machine, Yugi…"

"Not a snowball's chance in hell," he replied. "I got it up to twenty extra balls. I might be able to pull a record out of this if I try hard enough."

"It's not that," she hissed.

Jou glanced at her face. "What is it then?"

_"He's here!"_

He blinked. "Michael Jackson?"

"Not Michael Jackson, you idiot – though I guess we'd still want to run from that – but I swear I heard Mokuba's voice, and you know who _he_ never goes anywhere without…"

Yami twitched, and the ball fell effortlessly between the flippers. "You don't mean to say –"

"I do," Mai replied with a grim nod.

For a moment there was silence, then Yami stepped away from the machine and started talking in rapid-fire. "OkaythenChadhere'syourpinballmachineyoucanplaytherestoftheturnandthebet'sofffornowduetoextenuatingcircumstances!!" And without further comment, he and Jou broke into a run.

"What was _that_ all about?" Ryou asked, raising one eyebrow.

Chad took the pinball machine. "Well, now he's set _me_ up for an all-time high score _and_ called off a bet I was losing, so my gratitude goes out to whoever scared him off like that!"

"You're welcome," said a voice they all knew _very_ well, "but who, pray tell, might you be talking about?"

Mokuba had already run over to Anzu and was jumping up and down in his rush to talk to her. "Hey Anzu, you'd never believe how much fun we had in Canada! We went to Vancouver and Calgary and Montreal and Toronto and Nova Scotia and _everywhere!!_ It was so cool! We shoulda had you come with!"

"OH NO." Anzu waved her hands defensively. "Don't think I haven't seen the pairings on FanFiction.net! It's always me and your brother, me and your brother. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY!!"

Everyone stared at her, then Ryou spoke up. "If that wasn't breaking the fourth wall, I don't know what is."

"Back in canon, everybody," she replied as though nothing had happened.

Kaiba had just caught a glance of the score on the pinball machine and paled considerably. "How many extra balls do you _have?!"_

"Nineteen, now," said Chad, not looking up from his game, "but I didn't get 'em."

"Who did?"

"Do you really need to ask?" Mai muttered under her breath. Kaiba didn't hear her, chose to ignore her, or didn't yet know she was there.

"Oh, I dunno," Chad answered. "Some weird kid, lots of hair… come to think of it, did he get taller? AW, CRAP!" He had just lost his ball to the dreaded Space Between The Flippers. "Well, make that _eighteen_ extra balls. Don't talk to me, okay? I'm concentrating," he added as he pulled back the plunger.

Kaiba's eyes widened, then narrowed again. "Finally… after two full months of searching, I've found him… and he's gonna pay."

"What for?" Ryou asked innocently. "From what I've picked up, _something_ happened on Halloween, but nobody's told me exactly what. All they say is 'keep Yami away from sugar at all times' and all that."

"The little shit TP'd my house," Kaiba snapped before running out the opposite door.

Inside the restaurant, there was a pause, then Mai broke the awkward silence. "Wow. That's the first time I've been in a room and somebody didn't notice."

"You get used to it," Ryou sighed forlornly.

"I've got dibs on the pinball machine next," said Mokuba, raising one hand.

"Sorry, kiddo, I'm gonna be here a while," Chad replied.

"Well, now that Yami and Jou and Honda have gone and ditched, we've got some extra pizza and breadsticks," Anzu pointed out when she saw the dejected expression forming on the boy's face. "You can have some of theirs."

Mokuba grinned. "Domo arigatou!" he chirped before digging straight into the Cheesy Bread.

"Just don't get your fur all over the pizza," Mai chuckled.

_Outside, in the streets, at that very moment…_

"I think we lost him," Honda whispered. All three boys were hiding behind a dumpster in an alley not too far from the Domino's, but in such a way that from it, no one could see you, and from where you were, you couldn't see it.

This would prove to be both a blessing and a curse.

"I don't think so, but I sure _hope_ we lost him," Yami groaned, sitting back against the alley wall.

_See? Nothing good ever happens anymore when you're around._

_Shut the hell up._

"Well, from there, there's just no way he could see us, right?" said Jou. "I mean, he's way over there, and we're way over here, and –" by now he had moved out from behind the dumpster a bit, and everyone was staring at him in wide-eyed shock. "What? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Then it dawned on him. "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"

Honda nodded grimly.

The moment Yami had seen the trenchcoated silhouette behind his partner in crime, looking almost evil in the early afternoon sunlight, he took it as a cue to hide. _Sorry about this, Yugi, but even I have a sense of self-preservation…_

If Yugi hadn't been so incredibly scared at the moment, he would have been scowling. _You know, it goes against my policy to accept apologies that contain the word "but"._

This sudden change in his comrade was most of what tipped Jou off to the presence of his worst enemy behind him. He turned slowly around to face him. "Oh, hi there, Kaiba…"

"Merry Christmas, Fido," Kaiba replied seamlessly. "Now, whose idea was it to TP my house? As if I needed to ask."

Jou growled. "FIDO?!"

"Not I, said the fly," said Honda, scooting away from everyone and trying to make his way towards the exit.

"Not me, said the flea," Yugi added hastily, and followed Honda.

Kaiba waited and let Honda out of the alley, but stuck his foot out just in time to trip Yugi, whom he then snatched by the collar and hauled to his feet. "Well? What's the flea got to say for himself?"

Yugi gulped. Kaiba was well-known to be dangerous when he was mad. "Um… the flea says it was not his idea!!"

"Oh, yes, I'm sure it wasn't, little flea."

"No, I swear! It was all Yami's fault! He knocked me out and dragged me along for the ride!" he wailed.

"Really?" said Kaiba, as though this was all a big surprise, which it obviously wasn't. "Well, then, send him my Season's Greetings." With that, he clonked Yugi hard over the head and left him lying swirly-eyed in the snow. "Yep, looks like I've still got it," he sighed, and turned around –

Jou promptly hit him in the face with a Deep Dish pan. "Fido _that_, dumbass," he growled.

"Damnit," Kaiba mumbled with what little coherent thought he could muster in his rather incoherent state.

"What happened?" Anzu asked casually, her mouth half-full of Cinnastick, when Jou walked in with Yugi slung under one arm.

"We're okay," Jou assured her. "I don't think Kaiba's gonna be bugging us for a while –"

"You shouldn't have said that," Mai interrupted.

"What? Why?"

She pointed to where Mokuba had just bolted out the door yelling "Oniisan!" over and over. "Because his brother was in the room," she said simply. "Hang on a sec. I think the guy at the pinball machine is totally oblivious to our presence here, so find me some duct tape. I think we can be out of here within three minutes if we do this right…"

_Six minutes later…_

"You have any idea of how lucky we are that Kaiba's hard for a nine-year-old kid to drag across an icy parking lot?" Honda asked in annoyance as the gang piled into Mai's convertible.

"Screw that," Jou countered. "You have any idea how lucky we are that Yugi's tiny?"

"Screw _that,"_ Mai added. "You have any idea how much duct tape they had in the back room?"

(Oh, in case you were wondering, dearest reader, they hung a Deep Dish pan from the top of the door with a rope made out of duct tape so that as soon as Mokuba dragged Kaiba's sorry hide inside – well, there was a rather loud CLANG sound and both of the brothers were now unconscious. Chad hadn't noticed at all. He still had fifteen extra balls left.)

"I mean, why on earth would a Domino's need so much duct tape?" she continued, pulling out of the lot and pointing the car back in the direction of the game shop.

"Raises questions about the mushrooms, doesn't it?" said Ryou innocently.

"Raises questions about the anchovies," said Jou.

"Oh, shut up. I like anchovies."

Anzu didn't talk. Yugi had been crammed in the seat between her and Jou, still asleep, and he was leaning on her shoulder. Oh – until they hit a speed bump Mai hadn't been able to see under the snow, and his head fell into her lap. She flushed a faint shade of red, but hey, the kid was so cute when he was asleep that it seemed like it'd almost be a crime to wake him up.

She didn't get to see who took a picture, but decided whoever it was was a dead man.

After another ten minutes, they weren't much closer to getting back to Yugi's place, and that was when he woke up. For a second he had a desire to know where he was and what was this soft thing he was on, and then realized it was Anzu, and for a second he wanted to get off… but only a second. Apparently, Mai's heater was broken, and it was so _very_ cold in the car, and Anzu was relatively warm. He pretended to still be asleep.

_Ah, I was right. You _can_ be devious when you put your mind to it._

_Hey, as far as I can tell she's holding me like this on purpose…_

Another twenty minutes brought them to a 7-11. Honda decided to speak up. "Uh, Mai? Why are we stopping here?"

"You'll see," she said, hopping out of the car. "Stay here, I'll be right back."

"I wonder what she's getting," Jou muttered.

"Maybe…" Honda turned to him and grinned. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Probably not."

A minute or two later, Mai returned. Yugi, still feigning sleep, didn't see what happened, but heard a good "Oof!" out of Ryou and an excited squeal from Honda. "Oh yeah, I was right!"

"What is it?" said Jou, leaning forward over the seat. "Oh my God! Sweet! I love you, Mai!"

"Hey, it's the least I could do," Mai replied with a smile. "You guys have all been so nice."

"But a whole _twelve-pack_ of Asahi?!" exclaimed Honda. "You've outdone yourself."

Yugi's eyes flew open, and he sat bolt upright, leaning desperately over the front seat between Mai and Ryou's heads. "ASAHI? But that's illegal! We're gonna get in so much –"

_"You weren't sleeping?!"_ Anzu shouted.

"It doesn't matter! We're breaking the law here!"

Jou started humming a song that sounded suspiciously like "Goody Two Shoes."

_What's the big deal? What's Asahi anyway?_

_It's a brand of beer, and it's not legal to sell beer to minors OR buy beer FOR minors!_

There was a pause. _Well, technically speaking, I –_

_I know you're old enough to have been mummified. That doesn't change anything; I'M still fourteen and if I've got you stuck in my body then that makes YOU fourteen, too._

_Oh, fudge._

"Law, shmaw," Mai was saying. "Live a little, kiddo."

"Don't worry about it!" Jou added, patting him on the back. "It's not like we're gonna get caught."

A long pause ripped through the car, until Anzu broke it. "You realize, now, that just because you said that…"

Ryou had finally managed to catch his breath when he felt it. The Ring was digging into his skin again under the weight of the beer cans. That surprised him for only one reason.

He'd deliberately left it on the table at Yugi's house.

This Christmas was, very soon, going to get even more interesting. That is, if you find carnage interesting. "I agree… we're screwed…" he whispered.

"Well, I didn't say _that,"_ Yugi admitted. "We might be able to get out of this with our hides moderately intact if we just return it or hide it or gift-wrap it for Grandpa or something."

Ryou whispered something under his breath that, if the others had been able to hear it, would have made them nervous.

_I'm holding a twelve-pack of Asahi,_ was Bakura's first happy revelation as he came to. Ryou shuddered, grateful they weren't back at Yugi's house yet, but it was only a matter of time.

It took quite a while to actually arrive at the house, but when they did everyone was glad to get out. It had been literally hell on earth trying to get a little V6 convertible through a six-foot snowdrift, and most everybody had gotten out to push for that one, but they'd made it.

Bakura, still hiding behind the convenient curtain that was Ryou, made his plans. The carnage was not far from birth.

Ryou knew what was coming and as soon as the driver's seat was vacated, he pushed the twelve-pack into it and practically fell out of the car on the other side. It was not forgotten, of course, and he hadn't really expected it to be; but at least it would put some distance between his yami and the dreaded beverage. However, he knew that if Bakura made up his mind as stalwartly as could be expected, that measure wouldn't be _nearly_ enough. So he made his way over to Anzu and whispered something in her ear.

"REALLY?" said Anzu excitedly. "All right, then. You can count on me!" That last part was said with a decidedly evil grin.

Yami noticed it and sighed. _I don't even _want_ to know what they're up to._

Yugi lowered his eyes. "This is gonna be even worse than it already is if my mom gets home early," he said to no one in particular.

Jou laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "In this snow we could all be trapped at your house for weeks. She won't be back for a while."

"YOU GUYS all in MY HOUSE for WEEKS?" There was a short pause, then Yugi fainted dead in the snow at the very _thought_ of the devastation that would accompany such a horrible scenario. The others shrugged and walked inside, though only Honda had the afterthought of dragging Short Man in and dumping him on the couch.

END CHAPTER 2 PART 2


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